Always being one step ahead, and making things happen – that is the aim of Category Planning at Sainsbury’s. To succeed in the highly competitive landscape of grocery retail, you must be bold, make decisions quickly, and spot opportunities where others do not.

As a Category Planner in the Food for Later team, you will sit at the heart of delivering the company’s ‘Food First’ strategy by making and influencing key decisions across the category. You’ll be responsible for coordinating & optimising the promotional strategy across all secondary space, key events and channels and get to work alongside a range of stakeholders, from Buyers through to Marketing and Space teams and external teams in our supply base. If you are passionate about customers and want to make a tangible impact as part of a diverse group of problem solvers and strategic thinkers, then this is the role for you!

As a Category Planner in Food for Later, you will:

• Own and oversee the promotional plan across promotional space, in-aisle and online to effectively land messages to customers and drive incremental sales and volume
• Play a central role to ‘activate’ the promotional plan within the required timelines, working with cross-functional stakeholders such as Buyers, Supply Chain, Marketing, Retail and Commercial Operations to drive best practice and right first-time delivery
• Lean on insight, data, and cross-functional consensus to inform your decisions, as well as leading performance reviews to drive improvements in promo planning
• Communicate with clarity to support effective Retail execution of the promotional plan, key seasonal events, and ensuring in-store assets are requested and communicated on time
• Represent Food for Later internally to champion what the category can offer, securing buy-in and resources that will elevate the customer experience in and out of the store

Our Food for Later Team would love to see:

• Solid understanding of commercial, retail and customers - buying or promotions knowledge is an advantage, although not a requirement
• Strong analytical skills - turning data into insight, problem solving, and developing recommendations to present to stakeholders
• Excellent communication skills – building great working relationships and providing support and challenge to stakeholders at different levels
• Ambitious and motivated – takes initiative to solve problems and improve processes, thinks independently & willing to learn and grow, driven to succeed
• Excellent project management skills - thrives on planning, prioritising, and coordinating - able to drive timelines and identify risks and opportunities
• Strong Excel and PowerPoint skills

Why Sainsbury’s?

Work-life balance is important to us, so we offer our colleagues as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust them to decide how, where and when they work, combining remote and collaborative working with a flexible approach to hours, giving them plenty of time and space for life outside of work whilst delivering against our business goals.

As well as a great work-life balance, lots of on-the-job training and endless opportunities, click here for more detail on our benefits: https://sainsburys.jobs/working-for-us/benefits/

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Qualifications

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).

Responsibilities

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Here, everything in our stores starts out in Food Commercial. Whether it’s the product, proposition, packaging or price, or the fact that something tastes great, our team is responsible for all food items available in store, digitally and on demand. You’ll discover it’s incredibly fast-paced. People here are in it together and not afraid to take risks. They’re enthusiastic too, and their amazing leadership team is right behind them. The knowledge and experience you gain here could set you up for career moves, anywhere else in the business. So, if you’re passionate about food and just as hungry to learn, you’ll fit in perfectly.